Life is a Game

Variance, the concept of changing things enough that they do not appear to be the same, is something that you begin to realise is harder to achieve than you would think.  When you set out to create, whatever that may be, writing, singing, rapping, dancing, acting, baking, painting, anything that involves a creative input, there is an inevitability that your creativity will be compared to that of other people who have come before you within your field.  There will also be the inevitable accusations that you copied x y and z from this person or that person who also did x, y, or z.  Sometimes you can be inspired by others, and that can show up in your work, and sometimes you can completely rip off someone else's work intentionally.  Regardless of the intent however, the fact your work is similar even when intentionally so, demonstrates the limit of human creativity.

Conscious or unconscious similarities between our creations and those of others are two instances of this, however, there is a third and that is coincidental copying.  In other words, instances where your work mirrors that of another, despite never having experienced it, and having no prior knowledge of it whatsoever - for example the discovery of electricity - something often attributed to one of two men, Thomas Edison or Nikola Tesla, although the further you delve into the topic the more you discover inventions such as the Baghdad Battery which pre-dates both of these men by over two thousand years.  Others mentioned in connection with the "invention" of electricity are Michael Faraday and Benjamin Fanklin.

Regardless of who you attribute the discovery to, for the most part the assertions, observations, and conclusions drawn by these scientists are said to be independent and were not influenced by each other - although Edison and Tesla did develop a rivalry.  The fact that similarities occur throughout history between people in almost every field, is down primarily to the fact that we all live in the same world.  We all observe the same thing and whilst we will differ in many ways, in personality, perspective, and come to many different conclusions, there will be an inevitable similarity by virtue of the fact that we all work with the same senses, percepts, and can only draw a limited number of conclusions that can actually be accurate.

This argument is easy to make with regards to fields of study and human endeavour that have empirical conclusions that can be drawn - in other words questions which have a definitive answer.  It becomes harder when you venture into subjective fields and even harder still when you venture into fields where the judgement of the creative output is entirely opinion based.  Take for example the composition of music.  This is something that deals with creative output that is entirely subject to opinion.  Whilst many people and marketing companies have tried to sell the idea of "definitive collections" and "definitive works" that they claim to be the "best" creations to meet certain titles, e.g. best movie soundtrack of all time - these superlatives have no empirical definition.  People will use subjectivity to determine the result, by defining the criteria upon which they want to judge the productions and then assess each one to see which one comes out on top.  Again however as stated in my post dealing with the different types of facts, these subjective outcomes whilst having a structure and method, which produces an answer that is not directly an opinion, the fact the process that was used to determine that answer was shaped by opinion means that the answer is not empirical, despite being presented as a fact, it's an opinion.

Whatever you enjoy, and consume in high enough quantities, if you are observant, will eventually present patterns, repetition, and similarity.  If you like games, movies, music, food, or anything else that you can consume, and you consume enough of it, sooner or later you are going to start to connect together each experience with prior similar experiences.  You will link together games that have similar art styles, or gameplay mechanics.  You will link together movies that deal with similar settings, or themes.  You will link together music tracks with similar melodies, or lyrics, or artists with similar vocal styles.  You will link together foods that taste similar, you will compare meals you have to meals you had elsewhere.  Human life can be expressed as the sum total of all experiences we have and experience in itself can expressed as cumulative with positive experiences increasing the value and negative experiences decreasing the value.

Life is a game, everyone gets to play it once, it only has one level, everyone is in the same level, some have been here longer than others, some have much higher scores, but ultimately everyone has to deal with the same obstacles.  Power-ups gained through the course of your life will make the level easier, and setbacks and falls will damage you and make it harder.